1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to retailing devices and apparatuses therein, and, more particularly, to the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) enabled shelf tags and a wireless portable personal shopper which are used to manage a database that describes the location of all items in a store.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that in retailing, portable shopper devices and applications are an emerging and popular technology. Portable shopper devices (also known as portable shoppers) use wireless technology, touch screen displays, include computer processing capabilities, and may also include scanning devices suited to scan labels of items offered for sale. These portable shoppers are generally situated and arranged on mobile equipment (such as carts or in a hand-held form) so as to permit consumers the ability to scan their selected items as they shop while providing those consumers the ability to thereafter complete the transaction by quickly proceeding through the checkout lane. Certain portable shoppers provide consumers the ability to also checkout from their devices by further including a swipe type of device (such as a magnetic card stripe reader (MSR) suited for a credit card).
In many cases, retailers are also including upgraded software applications (e.g., shopping list, deli ordering, product information, product locator) which provide consumers further options while shopping. While consumers are finding these portable shoppers to be convenient in use, retailers are realizing that consumers may elect to shop at a particular grocer due to this convenience and the shortened time in which the consumer may encounter throughout the entire collection and checkout process takes. This latter aspect is particularly enticing to consumers and retailers alike, as in the checkout lane there is no need to re-scan the collected items in the cart as the items in the cart have already been scanned by the consumer prior to placement in the cart.
As becomes obvious, the retailer directly benefits from this time saving feature as the retailer realizes reduced labor costs due to the expedited checkout process and can consider further advertisement or incentivized communication with the consumer during the collection portion of the consumer's time spent shopping.
However these portable shoppers, though convenient and economically well-suited, pose retailers with a variety of concerns, including that of utilization in relation to a planogram of the store (wherein a planogram is how a retailer's configure a layout of their respective stores) so as how to associate the location of the device (and hence the consumer) in relation to the location of products of interest to the consumer so as to promote certain products to a customer based on their proximity to those goods; this utililization is particularly important as retailers desire to offer consumers a “scan as you shop” type of approach. Until now, the development of planograms has been a largely manual, time-consuming process, and the use of portable shopper devices to assist retailers in developing accurate planograms has not been explored.